Ten Weeks With Non-Bargirls Part 3

IV. Once upon a time

Day 20: A staffer at Chula offered to be my tour guide for the BKK museums. She is a princess, in beauty, poise, intelligence and demeanour. I felt very honoured indeed to receive her attention. She knows her history and crafts and cultures. In fact she
knows European cultures very well, down to having a husband and child in Martinique after a Parisian wedding! The Thai museums are great, but the presence of Princess amplifies everything 100-fold. The most exotic of art and gold and power are
dim indeed next to her. She carries herself in a finer manner than I have ever seen any woman walk. She anticipates every human thought, act and deed (well, all of mine anyway). She has a library of smiles to parallel her every nuance. Exquisite.
Exquisite. When that level of refinement graces little ol me – I am in complete submission. Melt down! Every second together was an honour. In once sense I am lucky. The presence of so many other Thai girls buffers my feelings for Princess. If
I had met her in the west, one day with her as a guide, I'd be yearning, crying, and obsessing all night, and every night thereafter. All my buddies would have been saying – "forget her, she's way out of your league, way above you.
Don't even go there." But in the magic kingdom, she called me again the next morning.

Observation: It is the magic of women that SO many men report about: After meeting many women, one stands out way above the crowd – the stunner, the angel, THE ONE. Given that all men are choosing different ladies, I doubt that there is some lady trait
that does this magic. It must be the INTERACTION between man and lady that does this. When two people "click". It is not their traits as individuals, but a new emergent trait of their coming together: the resonance, the good vibes, the
harmony – that is where the magic feeling comes from.

Day 21: Princess called to invite me to her home, a high end condo in the financial district, with all the extras. She had an elderly lady friend (former teacher) staying with her as a dressmaker, and Princess said she made extra money by producing vanity
dresses for older fatter women who wanted to look dashing, so she adapts patterns from the models, with a few tricks to disguise the flab. She is one of the few ladies to have a library. Most books are French, not Thai. She took me jogging in
the park, and rowing on the lagoon, then back for her cooking – a 4-star char-grilled red snapper, and salad to Nora Jones music. After dinner the elderly Dressmaker friend excused herself and went home. Princess toured me through 4 thick photograph
albums of her life: born in Chiang Mei, married to a French Algerian at age 22. He beat her and she fled. He kept their now 9 year old. And through all this she somehow emerges with all the sophistication of a corporate CEO, the classiness of
an operatic diva, and the demure femininity of "the perfect wife". I really cannot peg her – how does one get to become such a princess without a royal upbringing? Even taking into account her Parisian education, she surpasses any French
girl I've ever known. My mystery girl.

Things were going along smoothly, but I was postponing romance until I got my question answered. Silly me, since when does romance need an interrogation? She was my first Thai lady to create doubts, like she was hiding something, so I probed on. Her "natural
superiority" allowed her to chose what topics would be covered and to steer away from what would not. Her condo was 65,000 baht per month, plus a brand new Volvo and a second home over a waterfall. None of my other highly educated ladies
could afford this. Does it come from hubby? No. Does it come from parents or other relatives? No. Hmmmm Can part time dressmaking really be that lucrative? So I asked her how long to make this dress. She said 2 months. Well, that' not exactly
industrial production rate. It will never cover expenses.

I said Princess was sophisticated, but I did not say she was a prude. We were eventually sitting on the sofa with feet in each other's crotch as we told our life stories and dreams. (Yet another advantage of always taking your shoes off.) About 2
hours of interrogation and Princess changes into a nearly transparent nighty that knocked me off the sofa like in the cartoons. One hand and one foot slapped the floor, but at least I didn't go all the way down.

What do you do with a full lung primal yell at a time like this? Bottle it?

No playboy fold-out could beat her body. Such angelic beauty.

Despite the distraction of the nighty, [which d a y s later I concluded was the "stop talking" signal DUH! and also that she expected the nighty to return control to her as to where things were heading.] we continued spilling our guts to each
other, and that makes anything sexual even more high stakes. Think about it. By this time both of us were feeling this had become a high-stakes encounter. Makes a guy think: "I gotta get this one right". So here is the irony. For someone
who is not even close to being your soul mate, you can have sex with careless abandon within 2 hours of meeting (remember we are talking about non-bargirls here). But with someone dear and maybe even THE ONE, there's a BIG strategy change:
Careful, Cautious, Go slow, be Thorough. Its like handling kitchenware. The stainless we can toss about, but the fine crystal-ware must be handled with great care at every step, go gently, go slowly, never ending. Princess was definitely fine
crystal-ware … She was great about her childhood, married life, being a mommy, the divorce, about her job at Chula, an ovary infection that led to an operation, about her circle of friends, and her relatives, about her current search for a new
life, about living with me, about marrying me, about travel, relocation, etc. But it seems that there is a missing year where an increase in income came her way, so I suspected a sugar daddy or escort activity, or something, so my mood was stuck
in an incomplete sentence that only she could finish. To avoid that, she suggested its time for me to go home via a question of her own: "What's the point of our being here together today?" I'm thinking if there is some secret
problem here then I'd better hold off until I learn what are the real risks. So I answered: "No point at all."

No kiss goodnight for that one! I went home in a twisted state. So close!! What happened? What's the point of being so forthright, so endearing and then stopping short? Come on, just come clean, then we can both relax. She wasn't trying to avoid
sex. She wasn't trying to avoid me. But …. either something in her past or something in her soul was supposed to remain buried, and I'm standing there with a shovel in my hands?

Day 22: Mostly a work day, and a lot of emails with the ladies to catch up on. Made a few new dates. Princess wrote too. " Sorry for all today and please do not get upset or angry with me. I choose give my self a chance for love ……I wish I will
be lucky one day and so do you. Be happy." I returned: "No problem. We are just two people that do not understand each other. The world is full of such possibilities. Only a very few get to have it the other way – to really click. Its
ok – nobody can guarantee instant happiness; we must search and work for it."

I let it go – for the practical reason that things were so busy, there just wasn't any time for regrets. Trying to ponder regrets in Thailand is like swimming upstream in the rapids. You just can't get back to them, for all the present opportunities
bubbling about. There is still time for a late night fondue with Boom. I'm humming Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover.

Day 23: The phone rings at 9am. It is Princess' elderly assistant Dressmaker. I cannot understand her English, but she certainly had a lot to say. Quite emotional and long-winded. Finally I ask her to put Princess on the phone. Princess tells me
that Dressmaker is angry at her. Dressmaker said she should give love a chance. That she made a mistake to send me home last night. Wow, I was both honoured and bewildered. What was this wise mentor actually saying: "You SHOULD have had sex
with that man on your first date!!"? And that she didn't let me stay is something to cry about? There must be more to this story. I respond to Princess that we should talk. That she should drive to my place, so I can finish my work while
she is in transit.

She arrived here at the condo, which is 1/3 of hers by all measures: size, quality, location, view, services, furniture, etc. I entertain her with a laptop full of pictures of my life. So nice for us, we each got to do a complete exchange of pics. Even
more so today, she seemed to be lost in some past problem, and not knowing how the present could possibly deliver her out of it. So I probed for possibilities: husband threats? wants her 9 year old son back? Cancer? AIDS? current boyfriend? financial
worries? surgeries? miscarriages? parents ok? sibs? Client problems? on down the list. Still a royal personage in every way, she gave me a very honest 75%. Even surgical details. Eh, but holding something back, something big enough to cry about
anyway. We lightened the tone, cooked a dinner together, talked about things beautiful until tired. Then without much ado, we both went and lied down on the bed – and fell asleep holding hands. yes, still dressed, no hug, no kiss goodnight, just
holding hands.

There were tensions positive and negative, and we dealt with them by leaving some distance between us, about 2 feet! Seemed to me this was the way two people would behave in wartime, when worries and fears trump romance. But abruptly at 3am our restless
bodies took command of the situation. We rolled into each other and made wordless, energy bursting love, no foreplay. It was more of a release than a tender form of communication. It was destiny, not choice. It was like making love to the most
desirable of princesses, knowing the king could have your head within the hour.

Strange night.

But these are the relationships that pull you in; the love/hate, the push/pull, the happy/sad contrasts. The risky ones. OUCH they can hurt. My turn to be love sick.

Day 24: Princess called and asked about me joining her in a retreat to the waterfall house for a 3-day weekend. We would go with academes just in from France. It would be a 6-some with skinny dipping. Diving right from the house veranda into the waterfall.
Oh what a paradise. Ahhhhhh But at work, I was firmly committed to the most critical meetings of my entire 10 weeks. There was no way I could bow out. No way – it would be a disaster with months of effort sacrificed amid anger of the many. Oh
how I apologized to Princess. Oh how I kicked myself in the ass. Oh how I cursed my bad luck. Can I join you a day late on the weekend trip? We'll come up with a plan – somehow. Can I come over this evening to talk about it? Well, that evening
she took me out to the OTOP market to purchase musical instruments, authentic Thai arts, crafts, clothes, etc. Then she took me to an amazing restaurant with "jungle" theme and great live Isaan music. We were alone in the loft. Then
we went to a beer garden, where a plethora of oversized and each unique Rube Goldberg beer dispensers glistened like a glass menagerie. They were more entertaining than the live music. But only midway into her second beer, Princess cried. Second
time. Nothing to do with our light conversation at all. But insisted it was nothing, insisted that there was nothing to tell. I was beginning to wonder if it was simply depression, not an outside problem at all. Fifteen minutes later she was fine
again. We returned to her condo, and she prepared the shower. I went in alone careful to put no pressure or expectations on her, but perhaps she read this as aloofness. None-the-less, she joined me a minute later. We really enjoyed each other's
bodies. It was cleansing in more ways than one. It was even ritualistic, like the night before her wedding, or the day before her sacrifice. It was as much as two people could put into a shower. We took our time, attending to ever blink, every
gesture, every twitch, every tickle, every thought. We walked to the bed naked and she found comfort zones like melting chocolate – we simply poured into each other. Her moves and sounds were off the scale, not for being extreme, but for their
perfection. Absolutely grasping the value of quality over quantity. She took body language to the level of calligraphy. Nothing kinky needed – just a dance of bodies so sensual it went deep deep into emotional connections. And sorry to force another
metaphor, but I need it: My every move was somehow implied by her

choreography. Through writhing, she achieved a super-human experience, … a princess in a better version of the hallucinatory Alice in wonderland. Surreal!

By having a role in something so big, I was beginning to feel very small, like I had no say so in her fate. And even worse, neither did she. Lost in reverie, fine. But what god was pulling our strings? The Past? Something Lost? Something Broken? Or was
it a Bridge to some necessary change? or Wings to soar with?

And I never did make it to the waterfall house.

Stickman's thoughts:

A lot of guys are going to be very, very envious…